Review Summary: Less Stevie, more Murdoch please. Isobel is alright sometimes.
Prior to this album, Belle and Sebastian had made three of the best twee pop albums ever. They effortlessly combined beautiful instrumental arrangements, hushed vocals, and clever wordplay into works of art.
Fold Your Hands Child is still a great album, but is pretty inconsistent. Murdoch’s clever lyricism is evident in quite a few of the tracks, but the biggest problem is that many of them are boring to listen to and just not as memorable.
“I Fought In A War” is arguably the best track on the album. It starts off with Murdoch singing and a distant strumming of a guitar and keeps building as the song goes on. Murdoch gets louder, brass and string arrangements are added, the drums kick in and it is all very beautiful. The next song “The Model” is almost just as good and it sounds like it could have been taken straight from
Tigermilk. The lyrics are classic Belle and Sebastian, singing about “a girl next door who’s famous for showing her breasts.” After these two, things get monotonous. “Beyond The Sunrise” features Stevie’s and Isobel’s vocals and not Murdoch’s. His are very low, reminiscent of a country singer’s and her’s are hushed and pretty. The song itself is pretty droll because it mostly features plucking as the background music. The next song, “Walking For the Moon To Rise,” is a bit better. It is more upbeat, but Isobel’s voice is too dreamlike and the textures fumble into each other. Murdoch, however, knows how to do soft ballads, as evident in “Don’t Leave the Light On Baby.” Those beautiful strings come back and we even get a lovely vocal harmony with the other members. “The Wrong Girl” is pretty bad. Aside from the few nice moments the horns come in, Stevie’s voice here is not pleasant to listen to and the arrangements are messy. Murdoch sings once again in “The Chalet Lines” and sounds as he usually does, but the song is very boring and features not much of interest unlike the next song, “Nice Day For a Sulk” which actually features some rhythm and witty lyricism. “Women’s Realm” is a lovely duet addition to the album. Murdoch sounds fantastic as he opens by singing “I don't care whether you hear this, I don't care if I'm alone here singing songs to myself” and Isobel joins him later with a crispier voice this time. Finally we come to the end of the album and for some reason they added “Family Tree” before the phenomenal “There’s Too Much Love.” The first song is another one of those boring ones that are often a chore to get through, sung by Isobel, but the latter is a playful bookend with Murdoch as lead singer.
Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant is definitely worth a listen, especially by Belle and Sebastian fans. It might not be their best, but it’s not bad. It works for the most part and it still has some of that charm Murdoch brings, but you can’t help but feel bored at times when he is not around.
